[WAR] Debate

[Lord Celebi]

"WAR Debate: Where pretentiousness meets intelligence." -Cicero^{[citation needed]}

Welcome to the WAR Debate section! WAR has been proud to host the Debate section since the original WAR on PE2K, all the way back in 2003. Within this section, participants are asked to put their wits and rhetoric to the test against other debaters using a variety of serious issues for topics. Participants will be rewarded for critical thinking, creativity, and well-researched points. It should be important to note that the point of Debate is not to find the correct answer to the issue at hand, but instead to win the Debate. This should be treated as a sport, not as an evaluation of who your fellow competitors are as people.

I have four points per week to award in this section, and I intend on switching it up a little bit. Gone are the "Pro" and "Con" side winners. As we all know (or should know by now), any problem contains far more than two sides. This section will not be enabling a forced-binary problem viewpoint, and instead, will be encouraging an infinite-sided view of issues. Any and all views on a subject are equally admissible. Likewise, do remember that you do not necessarily have to argue what you believe, just what you think you can argue well enough to win. I will give out one point each week to each of the top four debaters in the section. If we have less than four per week, I will redistribute point order based on the quality of debate.

The best posts are ones that make a clear argument and are well researched. Always post your sources in the event someone wishes to bring the ethos of one's source into question. I would like to note that Wikipedia is an admissible source, as numerous studies have shown that Wikipedia's content can contend with that of peer-reviewed and scholarly articles. If you plan on citing a scholarly article as a source, please ensure that it is not behind a paywall. I know that I have access to such articles through my University, but not everyone is as fortunate.

Week I

The Budpest Memorandum was an agreement signed in 1994 between Ukraine, the United States of America, Canada, and Russia. Ukraine agreed to relinquish their stockpile of nuclear weapons in exchange for defense from the other three parties in the agreement should Ukraine come under attack. With the 2014 Crimean Crisis, it is clear that Russia has breached the agreement that they made 20 years ago with Ukraine. Since, the response from the United States and Canada has been mum. Should the United States have upheld the Budapest Memorandum and gone to war with Russia last March?

Finally, as a request, if this is your first post in the Debate thread, please take the Political Compass test and post your results. This will come in handy later.

[ray_quazaa]

So first off: http://www.politicalcompass.org/prin...3.38&soc=-5.59

(Aside, the questions were confusing and too binary for my taste. I estimate that I'm probably a little bit closer to the right on economics than it estimated)

It is pretty much undeniable that Ukraine's sovereignty was violated with Russia's taking of Crimea. But oddly though, a violation of the treaty does not provide a basis for war action by the United States.

Case and point: The Russian Federation already violated the Budapest Memorandum many times with economic coercion. This is in violation of Article 3:

3. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

(emphasis mine)

Russia has, numerous times, used it's position as a (natural) gas provider and Ukraine's position as a gas transit provider to exert political and economic concessions from Ukraine. By creating a natural dependence and then removing such economic favors, Russia has created a situation where it can dictate marcoeconomic pain onto the Ukrainian government. One could relate this to a drug dealer-drug addict type of relationship, where the drug dealer has incentive and ability to cause addiction. Russia-Ukraine goes one step further in that Ukrainian industry was USSR industry, which it inherited, not by choice.

After the gas debacle of 2005 - 2006, the United States and the United Kingdom did not respond. A clear violation of Ukrainian's economic sovereignty was violated.

The example is not to necessarily show that the US should not go into, but is to show why the US is not obligated to attack Russia.

Given the choice of response, the use of sanctions is probably the best response. Using military force to exert a deal would only serve to reduce the Russian Federation into a state of chaos, without a central government. That alone could create a situation where the A) the loss of life is much greater, or B) a new state could deny it's inheritance of the former treaty and charge market rate. This doesn't include potential other scenarios, such as socio-economic losses for Russian and eastern European people.

Proportional action should be considered, and as a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum, a equally proportional attack on Russia... doesn't really exist. No military action by the US could be considered 'proportional,' as allowed under international law. Furthermore, it would not necessarily be right for the US to act in such a way that would cause civilian casualties (which barely any occurred in Crimea).

The proportional reaction to the taking would be Ukraine to reassert control over Crimea in the opening days of the attack with a swift rise in military forces and prevention of Russia from reinforcement. Both would have been allowed under the Memorandum. Obviously, with Ukraine in disarray, Russia took the opportunity to act before Ukraine could reestablish itself.

In conclusion, the ability for the US to enforce agreements signed by other nations is not limited to only military action. It never has been. The US is attempting to enforce agreements through economic 'assaults' on Russia, which serve to protect civilian lives and prevent a collapse of governments. Both in the end, save lives. War, especially by two large, powerful, states, would be disproportional to the actions in Crimea, especially with the geopolitical consequences of such actions.

@HKim -> Lets see what you do

[Lord Celebi]

@ray_quazaa, that was beautiful. If only everyone else was like you.